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Catspaw (episode)
The Enterprise crew finds witches, black cats, and haunted castles on a distant planet. Summary A landing party of Sulu, Scott and crewman Jackson is overdue for routine check in, when Jackson finally answers the ship's urgent hails. His confusing message: one to beam up. And when Jackson materializes, he immediately falls to the floor, dead. But his dead lips speak; a sonorous voice tells Captain Kirk his ship is cursed; he must leave or all will die. With two crewman missing and a mysterious death, Kirk doesn't plan to leave yet. He organizes a second landing party: himself, Spock, and McCoy. They beam to the point from which Jackson was beamed up. There, Kirk intends to discover what happened to his missing men, and what killed Jackson. The planet is fogbound, something extremely unlikely given the environmental conditions. Proceeding towards a reading of nearby lifeforms, the landing party encounters three witches; the spectral hags again warn Kirk to leave. Winds and fog try to thwart the landing party, but they discover a large castle -- the source of the life form readings. Entering, the landing party spies a black cat, and follows it through the corridors, until the floor collapses beneath them, plunging them down to a dungeon chamber, and unconsciousness. Awakening, the landing party is chained. Scotty and Sulu appear, and Kirk is are first relieved to see his missing men. Then he realizes they're marching to someone else's drum: alive, but unresponsive and no longer allies. The two enthralled men free Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and herd them towards the door at phaser point; a brief scuffle is halted when the all the men are suddenly -- elsewhere, in the presence of a strange robed man. This is Korob, decked out in wizard's finery, with robe, wand, and black cat. Spock's comment that mapping expeditions have not discovered life forms on Pyris VII wrings a small truth from Korob -- that he is not native to this world. Korob first plies the crew with food and drink, then with fortunes in gemstones. All to get them to leave, without asking more questions. But Kirk tells Korob he could manufacture such stones by the ton on his ship; they're valueless, a fact that conflicts with whatever research Korob has done. Korob then reveals that the events were staged to test the landing party. He has learned they are loyal, brave, and uncorruptable. Sylvia enters. She tells Kirk that she can read and control the minds of men. Kirk briefly overpowers Scotty, seizing his weapon, and when he refuses to return it, Sylvia reveals another skill: she can perform sympathetic magic. A small model of the ''Enterprise'', held in the flame of a candle -- and the real ship, orbiting above, begins to grow hot... Seizing Sylvia's arm, Kirk removes the model from the flame, and the Enterprise from danger. When he suggests that landing parties will soon appear, Korob seals the model in a block -- and above, the ship is suddenly surrounded by a field unlike anything ever encountered. A field that doesn't come from anywhere, but just ... is. And that cannot be analyzed. Kirk and Spock are returned to the dungeon, while McCoy remains with Sylvia, who intends to question him. Kirk and Spock spend some time speculating about Sylvia and Korob, and Kirk decides they must be stopped. Their questions and interest seems to him a little too sinister. Elsewhere, Sylvia and Korob argue; Sylvia likes her new sensations. Wherever these aliens call home, they have nothing like it -- and she intends to remain here. Korob reminds her they have a duty to the Old Ones, a fact she considers unimportant in light of her new infatuation. Kirk is returned to Sylvia's presence, where he learns she is infatuated with him, as well. She reveals her plan: to dispose of Korob and join with Kirk. But Kirk is using her -- gaining answers through manipulation instead of . Among other things, he learns that the transmuter is the key to her power, a mechanism that facilitates the actualization of thought. But she discovers the deception, and has Kirk hauled back to his cell. Korob finds Kirk and Spock; he reveals he has released the Enterprise, and he releases them. He also reveals that he can no longer control Sylvia or her pawns, and that he considers her dangerously irrational. He is regretful, offering his opinion that their visit could have been a peaceful one. Time presses, and he cannot explain in detail; instead, he urges the men out of their cell, where they again encounter the black cat -- now grown to enormous size. The men are forced to retreat back into their cell. The cat forces the door of the cell, crushing Korob and giving Kirk an opportunity to retrieve his wand. Escaping through the ceiling, Kirk and Spock are confronted by their own enthralled crew, and a brief scuffle ends with Sylvia's pawns out of action, and the reappearance of the cat -- and Sylvia. The wand Kirk has retrieved is the transmuter, and Sylvia wants it very badly. She has a less powerful, simpler mechanism; Korob's wand holds the key. Sylvia is reluctant to simply seize the device from Kirk, despite her contention that he does not know how to use it. Finally, she threatens Kirk with a phaser, demanding the wand. Kirk responds by shattering the wand, and act that undoes everything... almost everything. At the landing party's feet, two small aliens wither and fall. Deprived of their transmuter, Sylvia and Korob have resumed their real forms, and are as Sylvia described them: feathers in the wind. They quickly perish, and both landing parties return to the Enterprise. Background Information * Although this was the first episode of TOS Season 2 in production, it did not premiere until the week of Halloween, 1967. It was, in fact, written in a Halloween-type theme for just that reason. * Walter Koenig joined the cast as Pavel Andreievich Chekov in this episode. In an apparent discontinuity, Khan Noonien Singh remembered Chekov aboard from the previous season's "Space Seed," but its not all that unlikely -- this episode's stardate (3018) actually precedes the stardate of Khan's TOS Season 1 appearance, meaning this episode could possibly have occurred before "Space Seed." This would be contradicted by DeSalle's change from botanist to assistant chief engineer, however. He had been a botanist in "This Side of Paradise", soon after "Space Seed." **It is more likely that Checkov was already serving on the Enterprise in "Space Seed" but his position was as such that he was not shown on air. Stardates are unreliable, especially since there is a different button design for the bridge in Season 2. * A detailed metal prop miniature of the Enterprise was created for this episode, then encased in lucite as one of Korob's tricks. The miniature was donated to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum by Gene Roddenberry. * Theo Marcuse, a versitile actor who played many villains over the years, died in a car accident one month after this episode aired. * Charlie Washburn, assistant director during the second season, said Antoinette Bower was the most professional actor to appear on the series while he worked on it. * Perhaps to give Bower a more artificially-human appearance, she wore a wig while playing Sylvia. Bower's real hair can be seen (with extensions) in the first of the exotic women she transforms herself into. * It's possible the cat in this episode is the same animal seen in Assignment: Earth. * Jimmy Jones is the brother of regular stunt performer Jay Jones. The resemblence is strong, but Jim Jones has a scar by his mouth the "other Jones" does not have. * The term "catspaw" has a double meaning in this episode. The obvious one is that Sylvia takes on the form of a giant cat; the title refers to her paw. Another meaning is that of a person used by another as a dupe; as McCoy points out, Scott and Sulu are used as catspaws to lure more crewmen down. * The only crew member to die in this episode is Jackson. * In a very brief scene during the red alert we see crewmen in turtleneck uniforms walking on a corridor. It is stock footage from Where No Man Has Gone Before and the last time that these uniforms are worn by Enterprise crewmembers in Star Trek. Nitpicks *Spock comments that Jackson hardly blinked after he returned to the ship. However, Kirk, McCoy and Kyle were the only people in the transporter room when Jackson beamed up. The fact that he hardly blinked does not seem like something important enough to repeat and it seems unlikely anyone, besides Spock, would have even noticed. *Kirk seems surprised that Korob knows his name however he already heard Korob, through Jackson, use his name (although he was unaware it was Korob at the time) as did the three witches that he, Spock and McCoy saw soon after they arrived on the planet. * When Korob mentions the transmuter to Kirk, the captain says "Yes, you mentioned that". However, it was Sylvia who mentioned it to him several minutes before, while they were kissing. Memorable Quotes "Jackson. The crew member who returned to the ship. You wondered what killed him? I made an image of him. In the essence of my thoughts, the image was Jackson. And when I killed the image, and knew that it was dead, he died!" - Sylvia Although not precisely a memorable quote, Kirk calls McCoy "Bones" until he sees the skeleton in the dungeon, whereupon, for the rest of the episode, he calls McCoy "Doc" instead. Links and References Main Cast * William Shatner as James T. Kirk * Leonard Nimoy as Spock * DeForest Kelley as Leonard H. McCoy * James Doohan as Montgomery Scott * George Takei as Hikaru Sulu * Nichelle Nichols as Uhura * Walter Koenig as Pavel A. Chekov Guest Stars * Antoinette Bower as Sylvia * Theo Marcuse as Korob * Michael Barrier as DeSalle * John Winston as Kyle * Eddie Paskey as Leslie * Jimmy Jones as Jackson * Rhodie Cogan as the first witch * Gail Bonney as the second witch * Maryesther Denver as the third witch * Mike Howden as Rowe * William Blackburn as Hadley * Stunt doubles: ** Jimmy Jones (McCoy) ** Frank da Vinci (Kirk) ** Vic Toyota (Sulu) ** Bob Bass (Scotty) ** Carl Saxe (Korob) References cat; diamond; emerald; Halloween; heat dissipation unit; Old Ones; Pyris VII; ruby; sapphire; Starbase 9; telekinesis; transmuter; witch. DVD Media Information * Star Trek: The Original Series, Volume 15 (original two episode single-disc release) * Star Trek: The Original Series - The Complete Second Season Category:TOS episodes de:Das Spukschloß im Weltall nl:Catspaw